Mona Lisa Smile: a training project for early diagnosis of endometriosis in adolescents

Endometriosis is all too often diagnosed with significant delay. This disease – which affects between 10 and 15 percent of women of childbearing age – causes pelvic pain, can worsen the quality of life, and reduce the fertility of affected women.

Thanks to the European project Mona Lisa Smile, led by the University of Bologna, a free distance learning course (MOOC - Massive Open Online Course) has now been created to train specialist doctors and trainees in Gynaecology and Obstetrics and in General Medicine to promote early diagnosis of endometriosis in adolescents.

Indeed, endometriosis can strike from adolescence, but early diagnosis, especially in younger women, remains a challenge. It is estimated that the diagnostic delay, generally reported between 5 and 8 years in adult women, can exceed 10 years in adolescents.

"The reasons for the diagnostic delay in adolescence mainly concern the peculiarities of the disease in this age group, which make diagnosis more difficult," explains Renato Seracchioli, director of the Operative Unit of Gynaecology and Human Reproduction Physiopathology at the IRCCS Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria di Bologna, professor at the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences of the University of Bologna and project coordinator. "However, there is probably also inadequate knowledge of the pathology by healthcare personnel".

The Mona Lisa Smile project was born to find solutions to this problem. A first tool put in place is an online course designed for healthcare

professionals. The course provides a comprehensive overview of endometriosis, explaining its epidemiology and etiopathogenesis and showing how to diagnose and treat the disease in adolescents.

Researchers are also working on the development of a free app designed to promote early diagnosis of endometriosis among healthcare professionals. Mona Lisa Smile is an Erasmus+ project led by the University of Bologna with the coordination of the team of the Operative Unit of Gynaecology and Human Reproduction Physiopathology of the IRCCS Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria di Bologna - Policlinico di Sant’Orsola, which has been engaged in research on endometriosis and pelvic pain for years.

Conceived by Prof Seracchioli and Doctors Simona Del Forno and Giulia Borghese, the project involves five other European partners: the IRCCS Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria di Bologna - Policlinico di Sant’Orsola, the University of Siena, the University of Liège (Belgium), the University of Madrid (Spain), and the University of Skane (Sweden).